SMS Is A Business Approach

 A Safety Management System (SMS) is a businesslike approach to safety as a dedicated, planned, and systematic approach. In a business, a financial audit is an objective examination and evaluation of the financial statements of an organization to make sure that the financial records are a fair and accurate representation of the transactions they claim to represent. An audit of a Safety Management System is no difference than a business audit. 

An SMS includes a general journal, or a data collection tool, where each transaction, or events are entered in order of time and date. The daily quality control tasks performed are credits, and the daily quality control tasks required to be performed are debit entries. The general ledger in an SMS summarized all the journal entries of an account to get the ending balances, where each daily quality control task is its own account and number of tasks performed are compared to the number of tasks required to be performed for that account. As an example, an airport operator is required to conduct runway inspections (an SMS account). Smaller airports may do a daily inspection, while larger airports may do an inspection every eight-hours, or an inspection prior to each departure or arrival. Each airport has defined how many inspections are expected to be performed daily and at the end of the day inspections performed are summarized and should be equal number of inspections required for that day. Any differences must be identified and recorded. Accounts are recorded in the daily rundown of accounts sheet.  

A purchase journal in a business is a special journal used to record purchases on credit, or payable to a supplier. The supplier is the operations itself, and any daily operational tasks are the purchases. The purchase journal of a Safety Management System is the register of safety critical areas, where each event is assigned a purchase value, or a hazard priority level, and identified by a number in a numeric value system as safety critical areas and the safety critical function of that area. As an example, a grocery store may have an isle of laundry detergent, i.e., safety critical area, and a supply of a specific brand, i.e., safety critical function, with a hazard priority level 7. An airport may have the runway identified as a safety critical area, with runway 04/22 as a safety critical function, with a hazard priority level 5. Tasks are purchases since they are both proactive and reactive to an occurrence as a mitigation of safety. It is expected that at the time a report is received the immediate corrective action, or avoidance action is completed. The priority level action is the time to initiate a policy corrective action plan. It took several years to finalize a regulatory runway end safety area after a large aircraft overran the runway, the immediate corrective or avoidance actions were already implemented at time the occurrence report was received, at which point it was decided to move forward with a regulatory requirement. 

A sales journal in a business is a special journal used to record sales on credit, or payable by a customer. The customer is also the operations itself, and any daily unexpected events, or occurrences are the sales. The sales journal of a Safety Management System is also the register of safety critical areas, where each occurrence is assigned a sales value, or a hazard priority level, and identified by a number in a numeric value system as safety critical areas and the safety critical function of that area. As an example, a grocery store may experience an occurrence where a stack of water supplies, i.e., safety critical area, is unstable and falls, i.e., safety critical function, with a hazard priority level 2, to initiate a policy action response. An airline may experience a taxiway occurrence identified as a safety critical area, and a wing-strike classified as the safety critical function, and priority level 5. Occurrences are sales since they are not time specific pre-identifiable. 

Commonly applied hazard priority level action times are: level 1 (immediately) level 2 (24 hours), level 3 (7 days), level 4 (28 days), level 5 (90 days), level 6 (12 months), level 7 (indefinite). 

Businesses produce financial statements (i.e., income statement, balance sheet, cash flow statement, etc.) to provide information about their financial performance to stakeholders, such as investors, employees, banks, regulatory bodies. In comparison, an SMS Enterprise produces safety statements, (i.e., statements of occurrences, balance statement of expected outcome to actual outcome of processes, data collected of daily tasks and events, etc.). Both systems are systematic oversight and operational management approaches. 

The first step for a comprehensive audit of an SMS Enterprise is the regulatory compliance step. Regulatory compliance is the bases for all operations. There are no activities, actions, tasks, or events at an airline without an operating certificate, or at an airport without an airport certificate, or a pilot, dispatcher, or mechanic without their certificates. As always, there are exemptions to the rules, as written in a book of an airline pilot who flew for thirteen years without a pilot license. However, an audit would have discovered the discrepancy. 

An audit of regulatory compliance is a line-item audit of all required regulations to maintain a certificate, standard compliance requirements and audit of manuals requiring approval by the regulatory oversight body. Each line-item of a regulatory compliance audit are transactions required to break even. If a business or an SMS Enterprise does not break even, they are very soon eliminated from operations. Compliance with regulatory requirements is described in operations manuals. Some operators are referencing the regulation paragraph in their manual for compliance made easy. For the appointment of an Accountable Executive (AE), an operations manual contains a flowchart to determine how an AE could be selected. The flowchart itself is a document showing how an operator maintain regulatory compliance, while the input of the selection process, including supporting documents is how the process an operator is applying conform to regulatory compliance. The next step, and often forgotten task when selecting the AE is that an AE is the person responsible for operations authorized under the certificate and accountable on behalf of the certificate holder for meeting the requirements of the regulations. This requirement also conforms to a businesslike approach to safety, where in a business the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) is the responsible person for processes to conform  to regulatory audit compliance. Over time it will become evident or not if an AE has enough knowledge, skills, and oversight to meet the requirements of the regulations. As the CEO of a corporation is not expected to be the expert on everything in a business, an AE is not expected to be an expert on regulatory compliance in an SMS Enterprise. 

As a financial audit of a business, their inventory is not directly audited by inventory count. Inventory is audited by the business adhering to requirement for inventory compliance factor. Manuals and operations plans are inventory and to be audited by the operator themselves. An operator conducts a line-item audit of their emergency response plan and include supporting documents as required to justify the audit result. A one-page signature page that a manual conform to regulatory compliance is not a valid confirmation document without the support of a line-item audit of that manual. Just as a business starts with a set amount a cash in the drawer every morning, record their itemized transactions, remove at the end of they day the recorded cash from drawer and count the drawer cash as their daily quality control, an SMS Enterprise begins the day with a pre-selected tasks required to be performed and at the end of they day compare the day to their daily quality control system.     

    
It is a misconception in SMS operations that only occurrences or errors are what is to be recorded, when in fact all transactions, or events are to be recorded. It is also a misconception that quick or spontaneous action to an occurrence makes aviation safer. When SMS is applied as a business approach to safety it becomes simple and manageable for small and large operators. 

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